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English: Dutch people talking on the streets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Today there no longer seems to be so much of God’s knowledge and some people may indeed have good intentions, they seek to integrate the many human and local customs in their service, which is not consistent with the wishes of God.
Also the majority of professing Christians holds on to the human traditions and keeps on fixing their eyes on Jesus Christ as their god, rather than to come to realize that Christ Jesus is the one sent from God, the Son of God and Son of Man.

This Son was announced well in advance and came to earth 2020 years ago. Provided that 20 – 20 is a special number and there have passed two millennia in which faith in Christ Jesus could be redistributed, this new season and church year we look for that special event.

On our ecclesia website we will elaborate on the announcement and the events surrounding this birth of the promised one to whom the whole world had to look out for, rabbi Jeshua, God’s prophetJesus Christ. There and here we will try to understand how Jesus fits into God’s plan of redemption and why that divine descendant does not necessarily should imply that Jesus is God. Contrarily, a god who so many centuries after the fall would later come on the earth to ‘pretend’ he was tempted (when He cannot be tempted) and to ‘pretend’ death, would only reveal a grim hard and not compassionate god, certainly if he allows humanity still to suffer.

It is true that this son of God 2020 years ago came here on earth. He also knew God’s love for mankind and also shared this love with those around him. This sent one by God, in a special way, placed in the womb of a young woman, could feel compassion for a sinner who was “deceived by the sin“, but fierce invective against religious leaders who deceived the people entrusted to them and who were only on selfishness or pride and self-righteousness.

Even today we still see situations like Jesus could see them in his region. As there where spiritual leaders who brought the people some stories and demanded things from the people that God never desires of man, so do some church bodies still in similar cases.

When Josiah decided to restore the temple of God came forth the Moses Code. When the king heard what was read to him immediately he realized that the situation, despite his reformation was deviated far away from God’s original command to his people. There had to be done much, much more, “debris” to be removed, before the situation actually was restored.

It should also be clear that today again much debris has to be cleared. Today also many people must be brought back on the right track. Today too we need people who are willing to show the way back to God to the many stranded lost ‘sheep’.

2020 years ago, Jesus came on earth to show the way to God. As we ended the previous chapter by noting that he is the Only Way to God, many will still have to recognize who he is and should come to see it is not to glorify Jesus as their god, but that they should glorify the heavenly Father of Jesus as their God.

This academic year on our ecclesia site and here, we are more likely to present why we should believe that in Jesus Christ, as the sent son of God, we have received the most precious gift and why he is the only way to God. We will also continue to show that he really is that long promised Saviour, the Messiah and Kristos or Christ. We must be careful because there shall come a time that he will come back to judge the people. At those end-times we want to be included in the group that shall be allowed admittance to the Kingdom of God.

In ancient times, God had brought calamity upon Judah and Jerusalem, but He had also brought hope to many people who lived around the Jewish community who also got a chance to be justified again and to be allowed entrance into God’s Kingdom with a Great People of God .

The prophet Habakkuk

Habakkuk may well with astonishment and dismay have seen how God’s people were as helpless fish. But Jesus foresaw the world of fishers of men. These would these fishermen can trump of Babylon, and in their nets caught fish or people can bring back to liveable waters.

The pride of Babel was hurt and became their fate. Babylon’s wide wall was razed to the ground and its high gates were burned with fire; so peoples made themselves weary for nothing and nations became tired before the fire, as there are today too many who are debilitating for nothing. (Jeremiah 51:58).

Transport of the Ark of the Covenant

Of the family of the king who had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and build a temple for true worship, 2020 years ago came a new king in the world. A king who will reign over us. This man of flesh and blood was given the authority by God to rule from Jerusalem.

As in previous years, men have tried all sorts of forms of government (or political systems), but non of those forms seemed to work. It has been found that it is very difficult to have a just ruler for all the citizens. Yet there is such promising one and it will come; Jesus Christ shall be the king of that Kingdom here on earth.

2 Samuel 23: 3 KJV The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

The last prophet of the old times and Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament, foresaw the coming of Christ would bring a crisis among the people of Israel:

Malachi 3: 1-2 KJV Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and shall suddenly come to His temple the Lord, whom ye seek, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts. (2) But who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap.

Christ the King of Israel came and was hung on the torture stake. But that was not the end but the beginning of a new world. The world we also want to show on our sites.

Those who killed more prophets from God, also brought the prophet and teacher Jeshua (Jesus Christ) to his end. But his sacrificial death would bring a change for us because it opens the door to new life. For that reason, his birth 2020 years ago, is so important to us.

As there were infidels in Jesus and Paul their time, Paul also having been confronted with the unbelieving Jews of his time. Trying the Jews to understand their stubbornness and impenitence should today be a sign for several followers of Jesus, brothers and sisters in Christ, to warn people of the coming period so that they can prepare for the

“The day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will reward everyone according to his works” (Romans 2: 5).

For 2016-2017 therefore an important task is ready, laid aside, for those who love Jesus and want to come under his rule.

There remains one thing to explain. In what is perhaps the best known text of the Bible, Jesus says:

“For so God loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Almost everyone interprets this as a declaration of the extent of God’s love, but at first is not what it says. The word ‘thus’ or ‘for’ means ‘that way’, and rightly so, because that is the root meaning of the Greek word.
We are dealing here with typical Jewish thinking.
Someone to love is not having an emotional feeling; it is to do practical things. If you love someone you must mean that you do what is good for him.

It does not being asked to us that we would find our enemies the sweetest and most sympathetic people on Earth. To try that would be wasted energy. It prompts us to do something; we do despite their hostility, to what is good for their sake, and that we in any way possible are trying to do away with their prejudice, as would it be our natural human tendency. In that light, we understand that John 3:16 tells us what God has done for us to show us his love. It is as it were the answer to the question of the people in Malachi. Only secondarily we realize that, if this is the solution that God has chosen for us, that also tells about the extent of God’s love. But the verse initially indicates this is the way of God’s act has consequences. If this is God’s solution to our problems – and that is what the passage tells us – then it also means that this is the only way, there is no other!

A little later in the same letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that Christ must get his followers “formed” (Gal. 4:19). We must live as Christ would have done in our place. And we must believe that we therefore will be retained on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice. Elsewhere in the letter he calls this righteousness by faith. Whom would have kept the law as a whole, should be righteous before God. But outside of Jesus is there nobody who succeeded to live according to God’s strict standards. Nobody is able to succeed. So are all, according to the strict standards of the law, unjust. But now God has given another opportunity to be “just”: through faith in Jesus Christ.
That is not justice according to the law, but God declares people righteous who meet the above four conditions. Scripture calls this “justified”, that is, declared righteous before God’s tribunal acquitted of guilt.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul talks about man’s justification not by works of the law, but by coming through faith in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 2:16 The Scriptures 1998+ (16) knowing that a man is not declared right by works of Torah, but through belief in יהושע {Jeshua} Messiah, even we have believed in Messiah יהושע , in order to be declared right by belief in Messiah and not by works of Torah, because by works of Torah no flesh shall be declared right.

A little further on he says:

Galatians 3:8 The Scriptures 1998+ (8) And the Scripture, having foreseen that Elohim would declare right the nations by belief, announced the Good News to Aḇraham beforehand, saying, “All the nations shall be blessed in you,”

Galatians 3:16-18 The Scriptures 1998+ (16) But the promises were spoken to Aḇraham, and to his Seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Messiah. (17) Now this I say, Torah, that came four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously confirmed by Elohim in Messiah, so as to do away with the promise. (18) For if the inheritance is by Torah, it is no longer by promise, but Elohim gave it to Aḇraham through a promise.

In this context, he uses a striking image. The law, he says, was a “schoolmaster” “monitor” “guardian” or “trainer”:

Galatians 3:24-25 The Scriptures 1998+ (24) Therefore the Torah became our trainer unto Messiah, in order to be declared right by belief. (25) And after belief has come, we are no longer under a trainer.

That schoolmaster could be a guardian or pedagogue to bring us unto Christ.

Schoolmaster (Gr .: Paedagogus, a “teacher”) was a special servant who was responsible for the education of children of wealthy parents. He had to teach them rules and ensure that they were trained. Likewise, we are raising kids with rules. We desire eg. that they are at home in time by night, in the hope that once they become adults, do not spend whole nights on the street or in the pub.

In his letter to the Romans (which topics are further developed in Galatians, such as a painting can be an elaboration of a pencil sketch) Paul says:

Romans 3:21-22 The Scriptures 1998+ (21) But now, apart from the Torah, a righteousness of Elohim has been revealed, being witnessed by the Torah and the Prophets, (22) and the righteousness of Elohim is through belief in יהושע {Jehovah} Messiah to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference,

In Galatians (3: 8) he argues that this is the real fulfilment of the promises to Abraham and that therefore with these promises actually “the gospel was preached to Abraham.” Perhaps unnecessarily, it reiterated that “faith in Christ” comes down to what is said above, and that it not only is a vague emotional feeling. But who fulfils the condition of ‘faith’ (actually meets the four conditions mentioned above) is also fully justified.

Paul writes to the Colossians that if we believe, that then ‘erases’ ‘the evidence’ from our sins. He uses a word that refers to the erasure of the text on a writing tablet. Normally a retailer or another creditor made a large cross over a bill that had been met. The Greek word for this is chiazo derived from the Greek letter ‘chi’, which is about as written as our x, but bigger (c). But the word that Paul uses is exaleipho that means erase or, superlative destroy. If a person is justified by faith in Christ, there is no trace of evidence about that still recalls his past sins or, if he asks for forgiveness over and over again, of his later sins.

Handwriting. Book in Arabic script, about faith and the sources and foundations of Islam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And thus we come to a fundamental point of biblical teaching. In all other religions and human wisdom man must be blameless (also in the other monotheistic religion: Islam), otherwise he fails. But who draws his faith on justification through Christ may fail! Provided he does his sincere effort to follow Christ, he has nothing to fear, though he would stumble over again. In the Gospels we read:

Luke 17:4 The Scriptures 1998+ (4) “And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day comes back to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.

Thus God deals with us. Even if we sin seven times a day, but come back seven times a day to God and say, ‘I repent,” He will forgive us. The requirement to be blameless, was replaced in Christ, by the requirement to sincerely to strive for impeccability. And that makes a world of difference.

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